About Me

This journal -- the antecedent to the blog -- gets its start from a
decision to dig up all the grass in our yard and plant flowers,
perennials, ground cover, shrubs, a small tree or two, berry bushes,
vegetables. My first title for it, I remember now, was "The Amateur." I
am fond of the word's Latin roots -- it means "lover." I'm not trained,
I'm not a professional, I just began digging things up and planting. To
be an amateur means to do something not for money, but for love. Five
summers later, I am still an amateur, but the place has blossomed. I
loved the development stage; now I'm working on management, maintenance
-- skills that require patience. I like doing things, trying things, and
seeing what happens. I experiment, I learn from experience (or try to).
I love to see things growing. I love the idea that when we step
outdoors, we are in nature. The "environment" begins at the doorstep.
Open the door; breathe the air; listen. Today a cardinal sat on the head
of a sunflower, bobbing and calling, looking for all the world as if he
had just lost something. I noticed he ate a few sunflower seeds too.
There is always something to see.Here's the "interests" list:

Monday, August 1, 2016

Garden of the Wild: The Bear Facts

[photo from www.bearsoftheworld.net] Here's another
oft-quoted citation from the seeming infinitude of such phrases in the works of
Wm Shaxspeare. Perhaps the most singular stage direction in the history of
legitimate theater: "Exit pursued by a bear."

Things do
not end well for the by no means villainous character who exits (though not fast
enough), so pursued. He was a court official, a bureaucrat, in the play "The
Winter's Tale," who did the business that a tyrannous monarch (his royal mind
self-poisoned with jealousy) bid him do. The bear was probably not aware of any
of this background when he took after poor Antigonus, seeing
in him merely dinner on the courtly hoof.

I was not
thinking of this, or any literary allusion, when I caught sight of the hefty,
thick-limbed, black-furred dog-like creature a hundred feet or so down the
lakeside path that Anne and I were walking, a path we have walked many times
before. We were intending to keep walking it a few minutes more until we came to one of our
favorite "family" spots.

One sees
what one expects to see, a domestic creature. Then comes the 'check-that, actually' moment that rapidly succeeds the 'big dog' false identification. The
brain does a quick double-take. Uh, no, not dog -- bear.

So one
says, on this occasion, addressing one's spouse, "There's a bear on the
path."

Calmly.

She
replies, always a quick one, "There's a bear on the path?"

Question: What
is the first thing that happens when you spot a bear on the path? Answer: The
first thing that happens is you stop worrying about the mosquitoes.

I take a
step backwards. Then another one.

It is
totally clear to me, though I am determined not to look,certainly not to stare, that the bear has seen
us too. And at essentially the same moment I spotted him. He has just this
moment heard our steps, or caught our scent. Or, picked up the vibe that some
creature is looking at him, and so lifted his head in the sway of the same self-protective
urge that set me to moonwalking back down the trail.

Anne has
turned by now, not wasting any further time on conversation, and is walking with some briskness back down
the path in the direction we came from. I follow her lead, realizing I am now
turning my back to the bear even though I have read in authoritative accounts
that you're not supposed to run away from a bear. It just provokes them. But
we're not 'running away,' I tell myself, we are simply walking away in a calm, steady manner, as if having decided
independently, with no reference to any woodland creature whatsoever, that it is
high time to return to the manor house and dress for dinner. Do I hear my
superego calling?

Then,
spontaneously, to keep up the pretense of casual retreat, we both begin singing
nonsense songs about a bear.

"Oh,
the bear went over the mountain, oh the bear went down to the lake

The bear
went back to the parking lot, it was a big mistake."

Or words to
that effect. Words that clearly, and repeatedly, include mention of a bear. As
if, for some reason, we are unable to think of anything else but 'bear.' I
wonder why that could be? Is there some supersititous logic in singing the word
'bear' in our nonsense lays. An unconscious belief that if we domesticate the
creature in our silly song, he will remain a figure of folklore, who lives in
harmless propinquity to our careless rhymes. Perhaps much like the bear who appears by
chance in the midst of "Blueberries for Sal," that doughtly
children's book, and departs harmlessly once some confusion over which
child/cub belongs to which mother is straightened out.

We tame our
fears with silliness.

"What's
the bear doing?" Anne asks after we have walked some way and sung a silly
piece back down the path. "Is he following us?"

I have put
this possibility out of my mind. I am not hearing any sound to indicate some
creature, domestic or wild, is coming down the path behind us.

I'm aware
of the old blues singer's advice, "Don't look back, something may be
gaining on you." Not comforting, somehow.

Anne turns to
look back. "I don't see him. It doesn't look like the bear's following us."

I have some
other thoughts over the next twenty minutes or so. Are there sticks or branches
at our feet on the woodlands floor thick enough and strong enough to serve as a
weapon? As a rule, I know, fallen branches are rotten-soft. How about rocks?
How likely is it that I'll find one the right size for throwing? How likely that
a bear would be dissuaded by a thrown stone?

The closer
we get to the parking area where we've left our car, the more confident, if not
completely relaxed, I grown that the bear is in no way interested in us. It seems
unlikely that we will bump into him again by chance.

We do stop
once on our retreat -- I mean 'return '-- to the car -- to take a look at the
large owl who has dropped onto a branch a mere half a dozen feet from our path.